Golden art by Vanderlei Lopes

Vanderlei Lopes(born in Terra Boa, Paranà, 1973) is an artist graduated in Plastic Arts and has been nominated for Pipa Prize 2016 with his golden art.

In an interview the artist says that an experimental sense guides his work, and in it some materials are used as a concept; the meanings and associations that they bear are a fundamental part of the body of the work. In any case, they are often cosmogonic materials related to the ideas of emergence and transformation.

“Brass, for example, which has been showing up lately in my work, although in different ways, has a strong relationship with tradition, with the alchemical sense of transformation, which suggests an idea of prescience.”

“My childhood and adolescence were in the country. My interest in art appeared at that time in the countryside of the state of São Paulo. I came to live in the city of São Paulo, the state capital, to broaden my studies and find an experience that was more directly urban. This led me to work as a bus money collector and at that time it held a certain fascination because the experience thrust me totally into the city, the ambience and urban space that was more aligned with my interests.”

The experience of moving around, the daily perception of changes around the city was foundational. There was a continual panoramic view of Sao Paulo, with its construction and deconstruction, an imposing horizontality pitted against a powerful desire for vertical integration; the thought of space and time in the urban social context.